After WWII ended in 1945, victorious Russian and American intelligence teams began a treasure hunt throughout occupied Germany for military and scientific booty. They were looking for things like new rocket and aircraft designs, medicines, and electronics. But they were also hunting down the most precious “spoils” of all: the scientists whose work had nearly won the war for Germany. The engineers and intelligence officers of the Nazi War Machine.

The U.S. Military rounded up Nazi scientists and brought them to America. It had originally intended merely to debrief them and send them back to Germany. But when it realized the extent of the scientists knowledge and expertise, the War Department decided it would be a waste to send the scientists home. Following the discovery of flying discs (foo fighters), particle/laser beam weaponry in German military bases, the War Department decided that NASA and the CIA must control this technology, and the Nazi engineers that had worked on this technology.

There was only one problem: it was illegal. U.S. law explicitly prohibited Nazi officials from immigrating to America–and as many as three-quarters of the scientists in question had been committed Nazis.

Data-Points:

Convinced that German scientists could help America’s postwar efforts, President Harry Truman agreed in September 1946 to authorize “Project Paperclip,” a program to bring selected German scientists to work on America’s behalf during the “Cold War“

However, Truman expressly excluded anyone found “to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Naziism or militarism.”

The War Department’s Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) conducted background investigations of the scientists. In February 1947, JIOA Director Bosquet Wev submitted the first set of scientists’ dossiers to the State and Justice Departments for review.

The Dossiers were damning. Samauel Klaus, the State Departments representative on the JIOA board, claimed that all the scientists in this first batch were “ardent Nazis.” Their visa requests were denied.

Wev was furious. He wrote a memo warning that “the best interests of the United States have been subjugated to the efforts expended in ‘beating a dead Nazi horse.'” He also declared that the return of these scientists to Germany, where they could be exploited by America’s enemies, presented a “far greater security threat to this country than any former Nazi affiliations which they may have had or even any Nazi sympathies that they may still have.”

When the JIOA formed to investigate the backgrounds and form dossiers on the Nazis, the Nazi Intelligence leader Reinhard Gehlen met with the CIA director Allen Dulles. Dulles and Gehlen hit it off immediatly. Gehlen was a master spy for the Nazis and had infiltrated Russia with his vast Nazi Intelligence network. Dulles promised Gehlen that his Intelligence unit was safe in the CIA.

Apparently, Wev decided to sidestep the problem. Dulles had the scientists dossier’s re-written to eliminate incriminating evidence. As promised, Allen Dulles delivered the Nazi Intelligence unit to the CIA, which later opened many umbrella projects stemming from Nazi mad research. (MK-ULTRA / ARTICHOKE, OPERATION MIDNIGHT CLIMAX)

Military Intelligence “cleansed” the files of Nazi references. By 1955, more than 760 German scientists had been granted citizenship in the U.S. and given prominent positions in the American scientific community. Many had been longtime members of the Nazi party and the Gestapo, had conducted experiments on humans at concentration camps, had used slave labor, and had committed other war crimes.

In a 1985 expose in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Linda Hunt wrote that she had examined more than 130 reports on Project Paperclip subjects–and every one “had been changed to eliminate the security threat classification.”

President Truman, who had explicitly ordered no committed Nazis to be admitted under Project Paperclip, was evidently never aware that his directive had been violated. State Department archives and the memoirs of officials from that era confirm this. In fact, according to Clare[nce] Lasby’s book [Project] Paperclip, project officials “covered their designs with such secrecy that it bedeviled their own President; at Potsdam he denied their activities and undoubtedly enhanced Russian suspicion and distrust,” quite possibly fueling the Cold War even further.

A good example of how these dossiers were changed is the case of Wernher von Braun. A September 18, 1947, report on the German rocket scientist stated, “Subject is regarded as a potential security threat by the Military Governor.”

The following February, a new security evaluation of Von Braun said, “No derogatory information is available on the subject…It is the opinion of the Military Governor that he may not constitute a security threat to the United States.”

Here are a few of the 700 suspicious characters who were allowed to immigrate through Project Paperclip.

ARTHUR RUDOLPH

During the war, Rudolph was operations director of the Mittelwerk factory at the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camps, where 20,000 workers died from beatings, hangings, and starvation. Rudolph had been a member of the Nazi party since 1931; a 1945 military file on him said simply: “100% Nazi, dangerous type, security threat..!! Suggest internment.”

But the JIOA’s final dossier on him said there was “nothing in his records indicating that he was a war criminal or and ardent Nazi or otherwise objectionable.” Rudolph became a US citizen and later designed the Saturn 5 rocket used in the Apollo moon landings. In 1984, when his war record was finally investigated, he fled to West Germany.

From 1937 to 1945, von Braun was the technical director of the Peenemunde rocket research center, where the V-2 rocket –which devastated England–was developed. As noted previously, his dossier was rewritten so he didn’t appear to have been an enthusiastic Nazi.

Von Braun worked on guided missiles for the U.S. Army and was later director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He became a celebrity in the 1950s and early 1960s, as one of Walt Disney’s experts on the “World of Tomorrow.” In 1970, he became NASA’s associate administrator.

KURT BLOME

A high-ranking Nazi scientist, Blome told U.S. military interrogators in 1945 that he had been ordered 1943 to experiment with plague vaccines on concentration camp prisoners. He was tried at Nuremberg in 1947 on charges of practicing euthanasia (extermination of sick prisoners), and conducting experiments on humans. Although acquitted, his earlier admissions were well known, and it was generally accepted that he had indeed participated in the gruesome experiments.

Two months after his Nuremberg acquittal, Blome was interviewed at Camp David, Maryland, about biological warfare. In 1951, he was hired by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to work on chemical warfare. His file neglected to mention Nuremberg.

MAJOR GENERAL WALTER SCHREIBER

According to Linda Hunt’s article, the US military tribunal at Nuremberg heard evidence that “Schreiber had assigned doctors to experiment on concentration camp prisoners and had made funds available for such experimentation.” The assistant prosecutor said the evidence would have convicted Schreiber if the Soviets, who held him from 1945 to 1948, had made him available for trial.

Again, Schreiber’s Paperclip file made no mention of this evidence; the project found work for him at the Air Force School of Medicine at Randolph Field in Texas. When columnist Drew Pearson publicized the Nuremberg evidence in 1952, the negative publicity led the JIOA, says Hunt, to arrange “a visa and a job for Schreiber in Argentina, where his daughter was living.” On May 22, 1952, he was flown to Buenos Aires.

HERMANN BECKER-FREYSING and SIEGFRIED RUFF

These two, along with Blome, were among the 23 defendants in the Nuremberg War Trials “Medical Case.” Becker-Freysing was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for conducting experiments on Dachau inmates, such as starving them, then force-feeding them sea water that had been chemically altered to make it drinkable. Ruff was acquitted (in a close decision) on charges that he had killed as many as 80 Dachau inmates in a low-pressure chamber designed to simulate altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet. Before their trial, Becker-Freysing and Ruff were paid by the Army Air Force to write reports about their grotesque experiments.

GENERAL REINHARD GEHLEN

It was five years after the end of WWII but one of Hitler’s chief intelligence officers was still on the job. From a walled-in compound in Bavaria, General Reinhard Gehlen oversaw a vast network of intelligence agents spying on Russia. His top aides were Nazi zealots who had committed some of the most notorious crimes of the war. Gehlen and his SS united were hired, and swiftly became agents of the CIA when they revealed their massive records on the Soviet Union to the US.

Gehlen derived much of his information from his role in one of the most terrible atrocities of the war: the torture, interrogation and murder by starvation of some four million Soviet prisoners. Prisoners who refused to cooperate were often tortured or summarily executed. May were executed even after they had given information, while others were simply left to starve to death. As a result, Gehlend and members of his organization maneuvered to make sure they were captured by advancing American troops rather than Russians, who would have executed them immediatly.

Two months before Germany surrendered in 1945, the Gehlen organization made its move. “Gehlen and a small group of his most senior officers carefully microfilmed the vast holding on the USSR in the military section of the German army’s general staff. They packed the film in watertight steel drums and secretly buried it in a remote mountain meadow scattered throughout the Austrian Alps.

General William Donovan and Allen Dulles of the CIA were tipped off about Gehlen’s surrender and his offer of Russian intelligence in exchange for a job. The CIA was soon jockeying with military intelligence for authority over Gehlen’s microfilmed records–and control of the German spymaster. Dulles arranged for a private intelligence facility in West Germany to be established, and named it the Geheln Organization. Gehlen promised not to hire any former SS, SD, or Gestapo members; he hired them anyway, and the CIA did not stop him. Two of Gehlen’s early recruits were Emil Augsburg and Dr. Franz Six, who had been part of mobile killing squads, which killed Jews, intellectuals, and Soviet partisans wherever they found them. Other early recruits included Willi Krichbaum, senior Gestapo leader for southeastern Europe, and the Gestapo chiefs of Paris and Kiel, Germany.

With the encouragement of the CIA, Gehlen Org (Licio Gelli) set up “rat lines” to get Nazi war criminals out of Europe so they wouldn’t be prosecuted. By setting up transit camps and issuing phony passports, the Gehlen Org helped more than 5,000 Nazis leave Europe and relocate around the world, especially in South and Central America. There, mass murderers like Klaus Barbie (the butcher of Lyons) helped governments set up death squads in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and elsewhere.

KLAUS BARBIE

Known as the Nazi butcher of Lyons, France during World War II, Barbie was part of the SS which was responsible for the and death of thousands of French people under the Germany occupation.

HEINRICH RUPP

Some of Rupp’s best work was done for the CIA, after he was imported in Operation Paperclip. Rupp has been convicted of bank fraud. He was an operative for the CIA and is deeply involved in the Savings and Loan scandals. A federal jury has indicated they believe testimony that Rupp, the late CIA Director William Casey – then Reagan’s campaign manager, and Donald Gregg, now U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, flew with George Bush to Paris in 1980, during the election in which Bush was on the ticket with Ronald Reagan. The testimony states that three meetings were held on October 19 and 20 at the Hotel Florida and Hotel Crillion. The subject? According to the court testimony, the meetings were to sabotage President Jimmy Carter’s reelection campaign by delaying the release of American hostages in Iran. The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, right after Reagan and Bush were sworn into office. Iran was promised return of its frozen assets in the United States and the foundation for the Iran- Contra deal was set into motion.

LICIO GELLI

Head of a 2400 member secret Masonic Lodge, P2, a neo-fascist organization, in Italy that catered to only the elite, Gelli had high connections in the Vatican, even though he was not a Catholic. P2’s membership is totally secret and not even available to its Mother Lodge in England. Gelli was responsible for providing Argentina with the Exocet missile. He was a double agent for the CIA and the KGB. He assisted many former Nazi high officials in their escape from Europe to Central America. He had close ties with the Italian Mafia. Gelli was a close associate of Benito Mussolini. He was also closely affiliated with Roberto Calvi, head of the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank. Calvi was murdered. Gelli’s secret lodge consisted of extremely important people, including armed forces commanders, secret service chiefs, head of Italy’s financial police, 30 generals, eight admirals, newspaper editors, television and top business executives and key bankers – including Calvi. Licio Gelli and others in P2 were behind the assasination of Pope John Paul I.

The central figure in Europe and South America that linked the CIA, Masonic Lodge, Vatican, ex-Nazis and several South American governments, the Italian government and several international banks was Licio Gelli. He, with Klaus Barbie and Heinrich Rupp, met with Ronald R. Rewald in Uruguay to arrange for the Argentine purchase of the French-made Exocet missile, used in the Falkland Island attack to kill british soldiers.

Who is Gelli and why was he so important?

To understand Gelli, one must understand the complex post war years of Europe. The biggest threat to Europe in pre-war times was Communism – it was the great fear of Communism that gave birth to the Fascists and the Nazis. Though both sides were dreaded, the Fascists represented right-wing government, while the Communist represent left-wing government. It was the right-wing that the United States and the Catholic Church desired over Communism – because Communism would destroy the capitalistic system. This is why the CIA and the Vatican had go through with Operation Paperclip. The Nazis had massive amounts of Soviet intelligence, had infiltrated Communist partisans, and were in no way going to be given up to the Soviet Union.

Gelli worked both sides. He helped to found the Red Brigade, spied on Communist partisans and worked for the Nazis at the same time, a double agent. He helped establish the Rat Line, which assisted the flight of high ranking Nazi officials from Europe to South America, with passports supplied by the Vatican and with the full acknowledgment and blessing of the United States intelligence community. While on one hand, the U.S. participated in the war crime tribunals of key Nazi officials and maintained an alliance with the Communist Soviet Union, secretly, the U.S. was preparing for the cold war and needed the help of Nazis in the eventual struggle the U.S. would have with the Soviet Union. Gelli’s agreement with U.S. intelligence to spy on the Communists after the war was instrumental in saving his life. He was responsible for the murder and torture of hundreds of Yugoslavian partisans.

The Vatican provided support to Nazis and Fascists because the Communists were the real threat to the Church’s survival. The Italian Communists would have taxed the Church’s vast holdings and the Church has had a dismal experience with Communist governments throughout the world – where religious freedom was stamped out.

Gelli was well connected with the Vatican from the days of the Rat Line and he worked for American intelligence, as well. Gelli formed the P-2 Masonic Lodge-which did not follow the direction of any Grand Lodge-and it was supplied with a sum of $10 million a month by the CIA. Its membership was a Who’s Who in the intelligence, military and Italian community. So prominent was Gelli’s influence, that he was even a guest of honor at the 1981 inauguration of President Ronald Reagan.

Gelli used blackmail in order to gain prominent members of his P-2 lodge, its membership is estimated at 2400 members, including 300 of the most powerful men in the Western World.. He was a close friend of Pope Paul VI, Juan Peron of Argentina, Libyan Dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, and many high officials in the Italian and American governments – he is also reported to have had some financial dealings with the George Bush for President campaign.

Gelli and his P-2 lodge had staggering connections to banking, intelligence and diplomatic passports. The CIA poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Italy in the form of secret subsidies for political parties, labor unions and communications businesses. At the same time the Agency continued its relationship with far- right and violent elements as a back-up should a coup be needed to oust a possible Communist government. This covert financing was exposed by the Prime Minister of Italy in a speech to Parliament. He indicates that more than 600 people in Italy still remain on the payroll of the CIA. Licio Gelli was an ardent Nazi and a perfect asset of the CIA. As part of Reinhard Gehlen’s intelligence team, he had excellent contacts. Licio was the go between for the CIA and the Vatican through his P2 Lodge.

Project Paperclip was stopped in 1957, when West Germany protested to the U.S. that these efforts had stripped it of “scientific skills.” There was no comment about supporting Nazis. Paperclip may have ended in 1957, but as you can see from Licio Gelli and his international dealings with the CIA in Italy/P2, and Heinrich Rupp with his involvement in October Surprise, the ramifications of Paperclip are world-wide. The Nazis became employed CIA agents, engaging in clandestine work with the likes of George Bush, the CIA, Henry Kissinger, and the Masonic P2 lodge. This is but one of the results of Operation Paperclip. Another umbrella project that was spawned from Paperclip was MK-ULTRA.

A secret laboratory was established and funded by CIA director, Allen Dulles in Montreal, Canada at McGill University in the Allen Memorial Institute headed by psychiatrist Dr. Ewen Cameron. For the next several years Dr. Ewen Cameron waged his private war in Canada. What is ironic about Dr. Cameron is that he served as a member of the Nuremberg tribunal who heard the cases against the Nazi doctors.

When it was at its height in drug experiments, operation MK-ULTRA was formed. This was the brainchild of Richard Helms who later came to be a CIA director. It was designed to defeat the “enemy” in its brain-washing techniques. MK-ULTRA had another arm involved in Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) known as MK-DELTA. The “doctors” who participated in these experiments used some of the same techniques as the Nazi “doctors”. Techniques used by Dr. Cameron and previous Nazi scientists include electro shock, sleep deprivation, memory implantation, memory erasure, sensory modification, psychoactive drug experiments, and many more cruel practices.

Project Paperclip brought us MK-ULTRA. Paperclip ultimately brought in key players involved in the Assassination of Pope 1, October Surprise (sabotage of Carter’s peace talks), and a great many other things still classified to this day. The results of Project Paperclip were devastating, and very far reaching. I guess that is what you would expect from collaborating with Nazis.

This research shows that the OSS/CIA that was formed in the National Security Act, the same agency that employed hundreds of Nazis, has been in alliance with the Vatican through various Agency connections such as Licio Gelli. The CIA/Vatican alliance that Assassinated Pope John Paul 1, JFK, and hundreds of dictators of 3rd world countries is the Illuminati.

The Bavarian Illuminati has been around for centuries in one way or another. It’s presence in the 20th century is the direct result of the Nazis. The Nazi connections to the occult and the Bavarian Thule Society were parallel to the American members of 33rd degree Freemasonry. When the Operation Paperclip was successfully executed, the Nazi element of the Bavarian Thule society was fused with the American members of Freemasonry to create the Illuminati.

Operation Paperclip, MK-ULTRA, October Surprise, and George Bush are all facets of the Illuminati, a group whose ideals are rooted in the occult, and dedicated to world domination.

Soon after the American Revolution, John Robinson, a professor of rural philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland and member of a Freemason lodge, said that he was asked to join the Illuminati. After studying the group, he concluded that the purposes of the Illuminati were not compatible with his beliefs.

“An association has been formed for the express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all the existing governments…. The leaders would rule the World with uncontrollable power, while all the rest would be employed as tools of the ambition of their unknown superiors.”

The CIA and the Vatican have rooted out all the religious establishments in the world. The CIA has overthrown and set up dictators under their control all over the world. The CIA and the Vatican have fulfilled the purpose of the Illuminati. The CIA and the Vatican are the Illuminati.

Why has the US spent so much money and time “so disastrously trying to rebuild occupied nations abroad”?

Some images remain like scars on my memory. One of the last things I saw in Iraq, where I spent a year with the Department of State helping squander some of the $44bn American taxpayers put up to “reconstruct” that country, were horses living semi-wild among the muck and garbage of Baghdad.

Those horses had once raced for Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein and seven years after their “liberation” by the American invasion of 2003, they were still wandering that unraveling, unreconstructed urban landscape looking, like many other Iraqis, for food.

I flew home that same day, a too-rapid change of worlds, to a country in which the schools of my hometown in Ohio could not afford to pay teachers a decent wage. Once great cities were rotting away as certainly as if they were in Iraq, where those horses were scrabbling to get by.

To this day, I’m left pondering these questions: Why has the United States spent so much money and time so disastrously trying to rebuild occupied nations abroad, while allowing its own infrastructure to crumble untended? Why do we even think of that as “policy”?

The good war(s)

With the success of the post-World War IIMarshall Plan in Europe and the economic miracle in Japan, rebuilding other countries gained a certain imperial patina. Both took relatively little money and time. The reconstruction of Germany and Japan cost only $32bn and $17bn, respectively (in 2010 dollars), in large part because both had been highly educated, industrialised powerhouses before their wartime destruction.

In 2003, still tumescent with post-9/11 rage and dreams of global glory, anything seemed possible to the men and women of the Bush administration, who would cite the German and Japanese examples of just what the US could do as they entered Iraq. Following what seemed like a swift military defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the plan had gotten big and gone long. It was nothing less than this: remake the entire Middle East in the American image.

The country’s mighty military was to sweep through Iraq, then Syria – Marines I knew told me personally that they were issued maps of Syria in March 2003 – then Iran, quickly set up military bases and garrisons (“enduring camps“), create Washington-friendly governments, pour in American technology and culture, bring in the crony corporations under the rubric of “reconstruction”, privatise everything, stand up new proxy militaries under the rubric of regime change and forever transform the region.

Once upon a time, the defeated Japanese and Germans had become allies and, better yet, consumers. Now, almost six decades later, no one in the Bush administration had a doubt the same would happen in Iraq – and the Middle East would follow suit at minimal cost, creating the greatest leap forward for a Pax Americana since the Spanish-American War. Added bonus: a “sea of oil“.

A sort-of elected government was more or less in place, and in the press interviews I did in response to my book I was regularly required to defend its thesis that reconstruction in Iraq had failed almost totally, and that the same process was going down in Afghanistan as well. It was sometimes a tough sell. After all, how could we truly fail, being plucky Americans, historically equipped like no one else with plenty of bootstraps and know-how and gumption.

Failure every which way

Now, it’s definitive. Reconstruction in Iraq has failed. Dismally. The US couldn’t even restore the country’s electric system or give a majority of its people potable water. The accounts of that failure still pour out.

Choose your favourites; here are just two recent ones of mine: a report that a $200m year-long State Department police training programme had shown no results (none, nada), in part because the Iraqis had been completely uninterested in it; and a long official list of major reconstruction projects uncompleted, with billions of taxpayer dollars wasted, all carefully catalogued by the now-defunct Special Inspector for Iraq Reconstruction.

Failure, in fact, was the name of the game when it came to the American mission. Just tote up the score: the Iraqi government is moving ever closer to Iran; the US occupation, which built 505 bases in the country with the thought that US troops might remain garrisoned there for generations, ended without a single base in US hands (none, nada); no gushers of cheap oil leapt USA-wards nor did profits from the above leap into the coffers of American oil companies; and there was a net loss of US prestige and influence across the region. And that would just be the beginning of the list from hell.

Even former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, George W Bush’s accomplice in the invasion of Iraq and the woman after whom Chevron Oil once named a double-hulled oil tanker, now admits that “we didn’t understand how broken Iraq was as a society and we tried to rebuild Iraq from Baghdad out. And we really should have rebuilt Iraq outside Baghdad in. We should have worked with the tribes. We should have worked with the provinces. We should have had smaller projects than the large ones that we had”.

Strange that when I do media interviews now, only two years later, nobody even thinks to ask “Did we succeed in Iraq?” or “Will reconstruction pay off?” The question du jour has finally shifted to: “Why did we fail?”

Corruption and vanity projects

Why exactly did we fail to reconstruct Iraq, and why are we failing in Afghanistan? (Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s new book, Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan, is the Afghan version of We Meant Well in detailing the catastrophic outcomes of reconstruction in that never-ending war.)

No doubt more books, and not a few theses, will be written, noting the massive corruption, the overkill of pouring billions of dollars into poor, occupied countries, the disorganisation behind the effort, the pointlessly self-serving vanity projects – internet classes in towns without electricity – and the abysmal quality of the greedy contractors, on-the-make corporations and lame bureaucrats sent in to do the job.

Serious lessons will be extracted, inevitable comparisons will be made to post-World War II Germany and Japan and think tanks will sprout like mushrooms on rotted wood to try to map out how to do it better next time.

For the near term a reluctant acknowledgment of our failing economy may keep the US out of major reconstruction efforts abroad. Robert Gates, who succeeded Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, told a group of West Point cadets that “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined‘, as General MacArthur so delicately put it”.

Still, the desire to remake other countries – could Syria be next? – hovers in the background of American foreign policy, just waiting for the chance to rise again.

The standard theme of counter-insurgency theory (COIN in the trade) is “terrorists take advantage of hunger and poverty”. Foreigners building stuff is, of course, the answer, if only we could get it right. Such is part of the justification for the onrushing militarisation of Africa, which carries with it a reconstruction component (even if on a desperately reduced scale, thanks to the tightening finances of the moment).

There are few historical examples of COIN ever really working and many in which failed, but the idea is too attractive and its support industry too well established for it to simply go away.

Why reconstruction at all?

Then there’s that other why question: Why, in our zeal to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, we never considered spending a fraction as much to rebuild Detroit, New Orleans, or Cleveland (projects that, unlike Afghanistan and Iraq in their heyday, have never enjoyed widespread support)?

I use the term “reconstruction” for convenience, but it is important to understand what the US means by it. Once corruption and pure greed are strained out (most projects in Iraq and Afghanistan were simply vehicles for contractors tosuck money out of the government) and the vanity projects crossed off (building things and naming them after the sitting ambassador was a popular suck-up technique), what’s left is our desire for them to be like us.

While, dollar-for-dollar, corruption and contractor greed account for almost all the money wasted, the idea that, deep down, we want the people we conquer to become mini-versions of us accounts for the rest of the drive and motivation. We want them to consume things as a lifestyle, shit in nice sewer systems and send everyone to schools where, thanks to the new textbooks we’ve sponsored, they’ll learn more about… us.

This explains why we funded pastry-making classes to try to turn Iraqi women into small business owners, why an obsession with holding mediagenic elections in Iraq smothered nascent grassroots democracy (remember all those images of purple fingers?), why displacing family farms by introducing large-scale agribusiness seemed so important, and so forth.

By becoming versions of us, the people we conquer would, in our eyes, redeem themselves from being our enemies. Like a perverse view of rape, reconstruction, if it ever worked, would almost make it appear that they wanted to be violated by the American military so as to benefit from being rebuilt in the American fashion.

From Washington’s point of view, there’s really no question here, no why at all. Who, after all, wouldn’t want to be us? And that, in turn, justifies everything. Think of it as an up-to-date take on that classic line from Vietnam, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”.

Americans have always worn their imperialism uncomfortably, even when pursuing it robustly. The British were happy to carve out little green enclaves of home, and to tame – brutally, if necessary – the people they conquered. The United States is different, maybe because of the lip service politicians need to pay to our founding ideals of democracy and free choice.

Failed reconstruction

We’re not content merely to tame people; we want to change them, too, and make them want it as well. Fundamentalist Muslims will send their girls to school, a society dominated by religion will embrace consumerism, and age-old tribal leaders will give way to (US-friendly, media-savvy) politicians, even while we grow our archipelago of military bases and our corporations make out like bandits. It’s our way of reconciling Freedom and Empire, the American Way. Only problem: it doesn’t work. Not for a second. Not at all. Nothing. Nada.

From this point of view, of course, not spending “reconstruction” money at home makes perfect sense. Detroit, et al., already areus. Free choice is in play, as citizens of those cities “choose” not to get an education and choose to allow their infrastructure to fade. From an imperial point of view it makes perfectly good sense.

“Failed reconstruction elsewhere turns out to be more important to us than successful reconstruction here at home.”

Erecting a coed school house in Kandahar or a new sewer system in Fallujah offers so many more possibilities to enhance empire. The home front is old news, with growth limited only to reviving a status quo at huge cost.

Once it becomes clear that reconstruction is for us, not them, its purpose to enrich our contractors, fuel our bureaucrats’ vanity, and most importantly, justify our imperial actions, why it fails becomes a no-brainer. It has to fail (not that we really care). They don’t want to be us. They have been them for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They may welcome medicines that will save their children’s lives, but hate the culture that the US slipstreams in like an inoculation with them.

Failure in the strict sense of the word is not necessarily a problem for Washington. Our purpose is served by the appearance of reconstructing. We need to tell ourselves we tried, and those (dark, dirty, uneducated, Muslim, terrorist, heathen) people we just ran over with a tank actually screwed this up. And OK, sure, if a few well-connected contractors profit along the way, more power to them.

Here’s the bottom line: a nation spends its resources on what’s important to it. Failed reconstruction elsewhere turns out to be more important to us than successful reconstruction here at home. Such is the American way of empire.

Peter Van Buren, a 24-year veteran Foreign Service Officer at the State Department, spent a year in Iraq leading two Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Now in Washington and a TomDispatch regular, he writes about Iraq, the Middle East and US diplomacy at his blog, We Meant Well.

Through the efforts of the Government Accountability Project and the ACLU, Van Buren will instead retire from the State Department with his full benefits of service in September. We Meant Well is just now being published in paperback. Van Buren is currently working on a second book about the decline of the blue-collar middle class in the US.

To revenge Pakistan for its involvement in Afghanistan, Russian KGB started its interest and covert operations in Balochistan. Turkmen writer Tariq Saeedi maintains that,” during the Russo-Afghan war, the Soviet Union was surprised by the ability and resourcefulness of Pakistan to generate a quick and effective resistance movement in Afghanistan. To punish Pakistan and to answer back in the same currency, Kremlin decided to create some organizations that would specialize in sabotage activities in Pakistan. One such organization was BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army), the brainchild of KGB that was built around the core of BSO (Baloch Students Organization). BSO was a group of assorted left-wing students in Quetta and some other cities of Balochistan”.

Balochistan became international in 1967 – 69 when Soviet Union, with the help of Iraq and India set-up an Azad Balochistan Movement and put up a person Juma Khan as its leader. He had no following and was running under ground to Iraq and Syria. I believe he died in exile in Syria. It will be recalled that during Mr Bhutto’s rule, the Iraqi Embassy was raided and much of arms and ammunition confiscated said to being supplied by Iraq to the underground in Balochistan. Iraq came under severe criticism in the Arab world for working against such a staunch friend of Arabs as Pakistan. Iraq explained that they were supporting the Iranian Balochis through Pakistan in their enmity with Iran etc. This was the time if I remember correctly when ZAB had undertaken an operation against Baloch Sardars whom he wanted to eliminate to establish democratic leadership. An interesting fact of Balochistan is that while in Pak Balochistan majority is Shia, in Iranian Balochistan majority is Sunni. Iraq was playing the Sunni card against Iran then, as the official story goes. [Dr Samiullah Koreshi] [Baltic Security and Defence ReviewKGBinAFGH ]

After the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, BLA lost its major source of funding and went into darkness until American occupation of Afghanistan in 2001 that provided golden chance to India for its stronghold in Afghanistan under the shadow of Pro-Israeli NATO and US forces. BLA is again on the move with Indian, CIA and Mossad’s support who in return have their own objectives in burning Balochistan. In September 2006, it was reported that, “The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) pumped huge money, into the province, transferred arms and ammunition via Kishan Garh into Dera Bugti, from various routes,”.

Pakistan army claimed to seal the routes of separatists supplies through India and Afghanistan, after high-tech weaponry like surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 107mm rockets and other lethal weapons were recovered by the law enforcement agencies in the province. But Indian involvement in burning Balochistan was not blocked and Pakistan officials and security analysts continued explaining the involvement and tactic being used for the destabilization of Balochistan. In interviews published in The Post, Separately, Pakistan’s former Army Chief Aslam Beg and ex-chief of ISI General (retired) Hamid Gul both had accused Indian consulates located in Afghanistan and Iran and the United States with fomenting trouble in Baluchistan.

In the joint statement issued after the meeting of Indo – Pak prime ministers in July 2009 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, Indian involvement in Balochistan’s unrest was first time acknowledged by India and commented Brajesh Mishra, the National Security Advisor and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister in the NDA government, “This is an indirect acknowledgement by New Delhi that India has a hand in what is going on in Balochistan.” Global security Magazine writes, “Most recently, these activities included the stationing of Indian intelligence officers at Zahedan, Iran close to Baluchistan rebel activities in Pakistan. Pakistan charges India with complicity (via Afghanistan ) in the ethnic crises in the two states of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan: Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province. Pakistan complains that the Indian consulates in the border cities of Jalalabad and Kandahar are involved in fomenting insurgency in its Baluchistan province. Amidst increased fighting in January 2006, Musharraf accused India of arming and financing the militants fighting in Baluchistan. New Delhi categorically rejected the allegations. Islamabad banned the separatist Baluchistan Liberation Army as a terrorist organization in April 2006″.

Indians and Israelis have joined hands to act as the mercenaries for Americans to keep Balochistan burning. Ever since the Taliban were ousted from power and foreign troops landed in Afghanistan in late 2001, the Indians have been using the Afghan soil for sabotage and terror acts in Pakistan. The News International, a leading daily in Pakistan, on February 21, 2010 detailed that over a hundred Baloch dissidents have been sent to India by the Indian consulate, located in Kandahar (Afghanistan) for six-months training. These trainees were promised a monthly salary of $ 500 – 1000 upon completion of the training and working for the employer’s objectives. The newspaper report also revealed the command and control of these trainees. Half of them go under the command of Afghan Border Police chief at Spin Boldak while the rest lot to be put under the command of Afghan Police Chief of Shorawak District of Kandahar province.

Baluchistan International

To revenge Pakistan for its involvement in Afghanistan, Russian KGB started its interest and covert operations in Balochistan. Turkmen writer Tariq Saeedi maintains that,” during the Russo-Afghan war, the Soviet Union was surprised by the ability and resourcefulness of Pakistan to generate a quick and effective resistance movement in Afghanistan. To punish Pakistan and to answer back in the same currency, Kremlin decided to create some organizations that would specialize in sabotage activities in Pakistan. One such organization was BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army), the brainchild of KGB that was built around the core of BSO (Baloch Students Organization). BSO was a group of assorted left-wing students in Quetta and some other cities of Balochistan”.

Balochistan became international in 1967 – 69 when Soviet Union, with the help of Iraq and India set-up an Azad Balochistan Movement and put up a person Juma Khan as its leader. He had no…

is a form of anarchism, as most often represented by Max Stirner and it is a school of anarchist thought that originated in the philosophy of Max Stirner, a nineteenth century Hegelian philosopher whose “name appears with familiar regularity in historically orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of individualist anarchism.”.

Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum which may literally be translated as The Unique Individual and His Property) was published in 1844. The book is considered by scholar David Leopold to be “a founding text in the tradition of individualist anarchism.” In it, Stirner outlined his view that the only limitation on the individual is his power to obtain what he desires. He proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of State, property as a right, natural rights in general, and the very notion of society—were merespooks in the mind. In the words of Ulrike Heider, Stirner wanted to “abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members.”

Egoist anarchists argue that there are no rational grounds for any person to recognise any authority above their own reason or to place any goal before their own happiness.Hence they reject morality, concluding that no one has any reason to accept any principles of conduct, except insofar as accepting those principles is strategically effective in promoting one’s own interests. The consistent anarchist, they argue, should accept no unchosen constraints, moral or political, on their own sovereign will.

Stirner argued that property simply came about through might:

Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property.” And, “What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing.” He says, “I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!

This position on property is much different from the American natural law form of individualist anarchism, which defends the inviolability of the private property that has been earned through labor and trade. In 1886, American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker rejected the natural rights philosophy and, along with others, adopted egoism. This split the American individualists into fierce debate, as Wendy McElroy notes; “with the natural rights proponents accusing the egoists of destroying libertarianism itself.”Other egoist anarchists of the time included James L. Walker, Sidney Parker, and Dora Marsden.

Property;

Egoist anarchists reject notions of natural rights expounded by liberal economics, but reject traditional communist ideas about property and resources belonging to all of society also, presenting a view of property that is neither communist nor individualist. Stirner firmly stated that in his opinion, might meant right, and that it was the ability to physically control something which gave you the right to dispose of it how you willed. This did not mean that he was hostile to socialist desires for a greater share of the wealth labourers produce, but only that if they wanted it, they should unite and take the wealth that they felt they were owed. Stirner saw the employer-labourer relationship as exploitative, he simply refused to draw any moral conclusions from this fact. Thus, an egoist anarchist believes that nobody has a moral claim to wealth produced, and that in uniting with their fellow workers to take a greater share, they are acting rightly, in their self interest.

Egoist anarchists argue that self-welfare should be the guiding principle to follow rather than law. Stirner relates that you can get further with a handful of might than you can with a bagful of right.Template:citequote Law is argued to exist not because men recognize them as being favorable to their interests, but because men hold them to be sacred. Anyone who breaks the law is violating what is sacred. Therefore there are no criminals except against something sacred. If you do away with the sacrosanctity of the law then crime will disappear, because in reality a crime is nothing more than an act desecrating that which was hallowed by the state. There are, according to Stirner, no rights, because might makes right and an individual is entitled to everything he has the power to possess and hold. The way to gain freedom, it is then argued, is through might because he who has might stands above the law. A person only becomes completely free when what he holds, he holds because of his might. Then he is a self-owner and not a mere freeman. Stirner does not believe that a person is good or bad, nor does he believe in what is true, good, right, and so on. These are vague concepts which have no meaning outside a God-centered or man-centered world. it is argued that an individual should center his interest on self and concentrate on his own business.

Stirner then argues to reject the state, as without law the state is not possible. The state, like the law, exists not because an individual recognizes it as favorable to his welfare, but because they considers it to be sacred.

The welfare of the state is argued to have nothing to do with one’s own welfare and one should therefore sacrifice nothing to it. The general welfare is not a person’s own welfare but only means self-denial on their part. The state hinders an individual from attaining his true value, while at the same time it exploits the individual to get some benefit out of him.

The state is argued to stand in the way between individuals, tearing them apart. Egoist anarchists would transform the state into their own property instead of being the property of the state and form in its place a Union of Egoists. It is argued that the state must be destroyed because it is the negation of the individual will as it approaches people as a collective unit.

Influence and expansion of Egoist Anarchism

Europe

John Henry Mackay, scottish-german early anarchist propagandizer of Stirner´s philosophy

The Scottish born German writer John Henry Mackay found about Stirner while reading a copy ofFriedrich Albert Lange´s History of Materialism and Critique of its Present Importance. Later he looked for a copy of The Ego and Its Own and after being fascinated with it he wrote a biography of Stirner (Max Stirner – sein Leben und sein Werk), published in German in 1898. Mackay´s propaganda of stirnerist egoism and of male homosexual and bisexual rights had an impact on Adolf Brand who published the world’s first ongoing homosexual publication, Der Eigene in 1896. The name of that publication was taken from Stirner, who had greatly influenced the young Brand, and refers to Stirner’s concept of “self-ownership” of the individual. Der Eigene concentrated on cultural and scholarly material, and may have averaged around 1500 subscribers per issue during its lifetime.Benjamin Tucker followed this journal from the United States.

Another later german anarchist publication influenced deeply by Stirner was Der Einzige. It appeared in 1919, as a weekly, then sporadically until 1925 and was edited by cousins Anselm Ruest (pseud. for Ernst Samuel) and Mynona (pseud. for Salomo Friedlaender). Its title was adopted from the bookDer Einzige und sein Eigentum (engl. trans. The Ego and Its Own) by Max Stirner. Another influence was the thought of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The publication was connected to the local expressionist artistic current and the transition from it towards dada.

Stirnerian egoism became a main influence on European individualist anarchism including its main proponents in the early 20th century such as Emile Armand and Han Ryner in France, Renzo Novatore in Italy, Miguel Giménez Igualada in Spain and in Russia Lev Chernyi.

“For Novatore—a reader of Stirner, but not for that a disciple of stirnerism—the affirmation of the individual, the continuous tension toward freedom, led inevitably to the struggle against the existent, to the violent battle against authority and against every type of ‘wait—and see’ attitude.” Emile Armand ´s stirnerist egoism (as well as his Nietzschetianism) can be appreciated when he writes in “Anarchist Individualism as Life and Activity (1907)” when he says anarchists “are pioneers attached to no party, non-conformists, standing outside herd morality and conventional ‘good’ and ‘evil’ ‘a-social’. A ‘species’ apart, one might say. They go forward, stumbling, sometimes falling, sometimes triumphant, sometimes vanquished. But they do go forward, and by living for themselves, these ‘egoists’, they dig the furrow, they open the broach through which will pass those who deny archism, the unique ones who will succeed them.” Spanish individualist anarchist Miguel Gimenez Igualada wrote a book on Stirner. In Russia, individualist anarchism inspired by Stirner “combined with an appreciation for Friedrich Nietzsche attracted a small following of bohemian artists and intellectuals such as Lev Chernyi, as well as a few lone wolves who found self-expression in crime and violence”. They rejected organizing, believing that only unorganized individuals were safe from coercion and domination, believing this kept them true to the ideals of anarchism.

Stirner´s influence also expressed itself also in a different way in spanish and french individualist anarchism. “The theoretical positions and the vital experiences of french individualism are deeply iconoclastic and scandalous, even within libertarian circles. The call of nudist naturism(see anarcho-naturism), the strong defense of birth control methods, the idea of “unions of egoists” with the sole justification of sexual practices, that will try to put in practice, not without difficulties, will establish a way of thought and action, and will result in sympathy within some, and a strong rejection within others.”

Illegalism was an anarchist practice that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s that found justification in Stirner´s philosophy. The illegalists openly embraced criminality as a lifestyle. Illegalists usually did not seek moral basis for their actions, recognizing only the reality of “might” rather than “right”; for the most part, illegal acts were done simply to satisfy personal desires and needs, not for some greater ideal, although some committed crimes as a form of propaganda of the deed.

Illegalism first rose to prominence among a generation of Europeans inspired by the unrest of the 1890s, during which Ravachol, Émile Henry, Auguste Vaillant, and Caserio committed daring crimes in the name of anarchism, in what is known as propaganda of the deed. The French Bonnot Gangwere the most famous group to embrace illegalism.

The illegalists broke from anarchists like Clément Duval and Marius Jacob who justified theft with a theory of la reprise individuelle (English: individual reclamation). Instead, the illegalists argued that their actions required no moral basis; illegal acts were performed not in the name of a higher ideal, but in pursuit of one’s own desires.

As a reaction to this, French anarchist communists attempted to distance themselves from illegalism and anarchist individualism as a whole. In August 1913, the Fédération Communiste-Anarchistes(FCA) condemned individualism as bourgeois and more in keeping with capitalism than communism. An article believed to have been written by Peter Kropotkin, in the British anarchist paper Freedom, argued that “Simple-minded young comrades were often led away by the illegalists’ apparent anarchist logic; outsiders simply felt disgusted with anarchist ideas and definitely stopped their ears to any propaganda.”

The United States and the United Kingdom

Benjamin Tucker

Some American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, abandoned natural rightspositions and converted to Max Stirner’s Egoist anarchism. Rejecting the idea of moral rights, Tucker said that there were only two rights, “the right of might” and “the right of contract.” He also said, after converting to Egoist individualism, “In times past…it was my habit to talk glibly of the right of man to land. It was a bad habit, and I long ago sloughed it off….Man’s only right to land is his might over it.” In adopting Stirnerite egoism (1886), Tucker rejected natural rights which had long been considered the foundation of libertarianism. This rejection galvanized the movement into fierce debates, with the natural rights proponents accusing the egoists of destroying libertarianism itself. So bitter was the conflict that a number of natural rights proponents withdrew from the pages of Liberty in protest even though they had hitherto been among its frequent contributors. Thereafter, Liberty championed egoism although its general content did not change significantly.”

“Several periodicals were undoubtedly influenced by Liberty’s presentation of egoism. They included: I published by C.L. Swartz, edited by W.E. Gordak and J.W. Lloyd (all associates ofLiberty); The Ego and The Egoist, both of which were edited by Edward H. Fulton. Among the egoist papers that Tucker followed were the German Der Eigene, edited by Adolf Brand, and The Eagle and The Serpent, issued from London. The latter, the most prominent English-language egoist journal, was published from 1898 to 1900 with the subtitle ‘A Journal of Egoistic Philosophy and Sociology'”.

Among those American anarchists who adhered to egoism include Benjamin Tucker, John Beverley Robinson, Steven T. Byington, Hutchins Hapgood, James L. Walker, Victor Yarros and E.H. Fulton. John Beverley Robinson wrote an essay called “Egoism” in which he states that “Modern egoism, as propounded by Stirner and Nietzsche, and expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all these; but it is more. It is the realization by the individual that they are an individual; that, as far as they are concerned, they are the only individual.”

Steven T. Byington was a one-time proponent of Georgism who later converted to egoist stirnerist positions after associating with Benjamin Tucker. He is known for translating two important anarchist works into English from German: Max Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own and Paul Eltzbacher’s Anarchism; exponents of the anarchist philosophy (also published by Dover with the title The Great Anarchists: Ideas and Teachings of Seven Major Thinkers). James L. Walker (sometimes known by the pen name “Tak Kak”) was one of the main contributors toBenjamin Tucker’s Liberty. He published his major philosophical work called Philosophy of Egoism in the May 1890 to September 1891 in issues of the publication Egoism.

Nietzsche (see Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche) and Stirner were frequently compared by French “literary anarchists” and anarchist interpretations of Nietzschean ideas appear to have also been influential in the United States.One researcher notes “Indeed, translations of Nietzsche’s writings in the United States very likely appeared first in Liberty, the anarchist journal edited by Benjamin Tucker.” He adds “Tucker preferred the strategy of exploiting his writings, but proceeding with due caution: ‘Nietzsche says splendid things, – often, indeed, Anarchist things, – but he is no Anarchist. It is of the Anarchists, then, to intellectually exploit this would-be exploiter. He may be utilized profitably, but not prophetably.'”

Emma Goldman

Anarchist communist Emma Goldman was influenced by both Stirner and Peter Kropotkin as well as the Russian strain of individualist anarchism, and blended these philosophies together in her own, as shown in books of hers such as Anarchism And Other Essays. There she defends both Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche when she says “The most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer’s ideas or personality … It is the same narrow attitude which sees in Max Stirner naught but the apostle of the theory ‘each for himself, the devil take the hind one.’ That Stirner’s individualism contains the greatest social possibilities is utterly ignored. Yet, it is nevertheless true that if society is ever to become free, it will be so through liberated individuals, whose free efforts make society.”Usually egoism within anarchism is associated with individualist anarchism but it found admiration in the mainstream social anarchistssuch as anarcha-feminists Emma Goldman and Federica Montseny (both also admired Friedrich Nietzsche). Max Baginski was an important collaborator in Goldman´s publication Mother Earth. Bagisnki in an essay titled “Stirner: The Ego and His Own” published in Mother Earth puts forward an anarchocommunist interpretation of Stirner´s philosophy when he manifests that “Fully as heartily the Communists concur with Stirner when he puts the word take in place of demand — that leads to the dissolution of property, to expropriation. Individualism and Communism go hand in hand.”

Enrico Arrigoni (pseudonym: Frank Brand) was an Italian American individualist anarchist Lathe operator, house painter, bricklayer, dramatist and political activist influenced by the work of Max Stirner. He took the pseudonym “Brand” from a fictional character in one of Henrik Ibsen´s plays. In the 1910s he started becoming involved in anarchist and anti-war activism around Milan. From the 1910s until the 1920s he participated in anarchist activities and popular uprisings in various countries including Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Argentina and Cuba. He lived from the 1920s onwards in New York City and there he edited the individualist anarchist eclectic journal Eresia in 1928. He also wrote for other american anarchist publications such as L’ Adunata dei refrattari, Cultura Obrera, Controcorrente and Intessa Libertaria.

Latin America

Biofilo Panclasta,Colombian stirnerist

Argentine anarchist historian Angel Cappelletti reports that in Argentina “Among the workers that came from Europe in the 2 first decades of the century, there was curiously some stirnerian individualists influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche, that saw syndicalism as a potential enemy of anarchist ideology. They established…affinity groups that in 1912 came to, according to Max Nettlau, to the number of 20. In 1911 there appeared, in Colón, the periodical El Único, that defined itself as ´Publicación individualista´”.

Vicente Rojas Lizcano whose pseudonym was Biófilo Panclasta, was a Colombian individualist anarchistwriter and activist. In 1904 he begins using the name Biofilo Panclasta. “Biofilo” in Spanish stands for “lover of life” and “Panclasta” for “enemy of all”. He visited more than fifty countries propagandizing for anarchism which in his case was highly influenced by the thought of Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietszche. Among his written works there are Siete años enterrado vivo en una de las mazmorras de Gomezuela: Horripilante relato de un resucitado(1932) and Mis prisiones, mis destierros y mi vida (1929) which talk about his many adventures while living his life as an adventurer, activist and vagabond, as well as his thought and the many times he was imprisoned in different countries.

Jun Tsuji, first translator of Stirner into the japanese language

Japan

Jun Tsuji was a japanese anarchist, epicurean and dadaist shakuhachi musician, actor, and bohemian who after discovering and adhering to Stirner´s philosophy proceded to translate The Ego and Its Own into the japanese language. Stirner also influenced the japanese anarchist writer and activist Sakae Osugi who also received the influence of Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Peter Kropotkin, and Georges Sorel.

Mid 20th century

French individualist anarchists grouped behind Emile Armand, published L’Unique after World War II. L’Unique, whose name was inspired by the french translation of The Ego and its Own (in french L’Unique et sa propriété) went from 1945 to 1956 with a total of 110 numbers.In 1956, the Spanish individualist anarchist Miguel Giménez Igualada published an extensive treatise on Stirner which he dedicated to fellow individualist anarchist Emile Arman. In the 1960s Daniel Guérin in Anarchism: From Theory to Practice says that Stirner “rehabilitated the individual at a time when the philosophical field was dominated by Hegelian anti-individualism and most reformers in the social field had been led by the misdeeds of bourgeois egotism to stress its opposite” and pointed to “the boldness and scope of his thought.”

Existentialist anarchism

In the United Kingdom Herbert Read was influenced highly by egoism as he later came close to existentialism. David Goodway in Herbert Read Reassessed writes that in Read’s Education Through Art (1943) “Here we have the egoism of Max Stirner assimilated in the anarchist communism of Peter Kropotkin.” He cites Read for this affirmation which shows egoism’s influence:

Uniqueness has no practical value in isolation. One of the most certain lessons of modern psychology and of recent historical experiences, is that education must be a process, not only of individuation, but also of integration, which is the reconciliation of individual uniqueness with social unity … the individual will be “good” in the degree that his individuality is realized within the organic wholeness of the community.

Albert Camus

Albert Camus devotes a section of The Rebel to Stirner. He consigns him to dwelling in a desert of isolation and negation “drunk with destruction”. Camus also accuses Stirner of going “as far as he can in blasphemy”. He proclaims that Stirner is “intoxicated with the perspective of justifying” crime although without mentioning that Stirner carefully distinguishes between the ordinary criminal and the “criminal” as violator of the “sacred”. He mishaps by misquoting Stirner through asserting that he “specifies” in relation to other human beings “kill them, do not martyr them” when in fact he writes “I can kill them, not torture them”—and this in relation to the moralist who both kills and tortures to serve the “concept of the ‘good'”. Although throughout his book Camus is concerned to present “the rebel” as a preferred alternative to “the revolutionary” he nowhere acknowledges that this distinction is taken from the one that Stirner makes between “the revolutionary” and “the insurrectionist”

Late 20th century and today

Sidney Parker is a British egoist individualist anarchist who wrote articles and edited anarchist journals from 1963 to 1993 such as Minus One, Egoist, and Ego. In “Ego and society” he writes “Against the mystique of the sociocrat, stands the conscious ego of the autocrat, whose being is pivoted within, and who regards ‘society’ simply as a means or instrument, not a source or sanction. The egoist refuses to be ensnared by the net of conceptual imperatives that surrounds the hypostatization of ‘society’ preferring the real to the unreal, the fact to the myth.”

During the 1990s in Argentina there appears a stirnerist publication called El Único: publicacion periódica de pensamiento individualista.

Situationists

In the seventies an American situationist collective called “For Ourselves: Council for Generalized Self-Management” published a book calledThe Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything in which they advocate a “communist egoism” basing themselves on Stirner.It authors say “The positive conception of egoism, the perspective of communist egoism, is the very heart and unity of our theoretical and practical coherence.” The authors there write “The perspective of communist egoism is the perspective of that selfishness which desires nothing so much as other selves, of that egoism which wants nothing so much as other egos; of that greed which is greedy to love—love being the ‘total appropriation’ of man by man.” “Communist egoism” names the synthesis of individualism and collectivism, just as communist society names the actual, material, sensuous solution to the historical contradiction of the “particular” and the “general” interest, a contradiction engendered especially in the cleavage of society against itself into classes.

Post-left anarchy

In the eighties in the United States emerged the tendency of post-left anarchy which was influenced profoundly by egoism in aspects such as the critique of ideology. Jason McQuinn says that “when I (and other anti-ideological anarchists) criticize ideology, it is always from a specifically critical, anarchist perspective rooted in both the skeptical, individualist-anarchist philosophy of Max Stirner”. Also Bob Blackand Feral Faun/Wolfi Landstreicher strongly adhere to Stirnerist egoism. A reprinting of The Right to be Greedy in the eighties was done with the involvement of Bob Black who also wrote the preface to it. Bob Black has also humorously suggested the idea of “Marxist Stirnerism” just as he wrote an essay on “groucho-marxism”. He writes in the preface to The Right to be Greedy: “If Marxism-Stirnerism is conceivable, every orthodoxy prating of freedom or liberation is called into question, anarchism included. The only reason to read this book, as its authors would be the first to agree, is for what you can get out of it.”

Hakim Bey has said “From Stirner’s “Union of Self-Owning Ones” we proceed to Nietzsche’s circle of “Free Spirits” and thence to Charles Fourier’s “Passional Series”, doubling and redoubling ourselves even as the Other multiplies itself in the eros of the group.” Bey also wrote that “The Mackay Society, of which Mark & I are active members, is devoted to the anarchism of Max Stirner, Benj. Tucker & John Henry Mackay…The Mackay Society, incidentally, represents a little-known current of individualist thought which never cut its ties with revolutionary labor. Dyer Lum, Ezra & Angela Haywood represent this school of thought;Jo Labadie, who wrote for Tucker’s Liberty, made himself a link between the american “plumb-line” anarchists, the “philosophical” individualists, & the syndicalist or communist branch of the movement; his influence reached the Mackay Society through his son, Laurance. Like the Italian Stirnerites (who influenced us through our late friend Enrico Arrigoni) we support all anti-authoritarian currents, despite their apparent contradictions.”

Post-anarchism

In the hybrid of post-structuralism and anarchism called post-anarchism the British Saul Newman has written a lot on Stirner and his similarities to post-structuralism. He writes:

Max Stirner’s impact on contemporary political theory is often neglected. However in Stirner’s political thinking there can be found a surprising convergence with poststructuralist theory, particularly with regard to the function of power. Andrew Koch, for instance, sees Stirner as a thinker who transcends the Hegelian tradition he is usually placed in, arguing that his work is a precursor poststructuralist ideas about the foundations of knowledge and truth.

Newman has published several essays on Stirner. “War on the State: Stirner and Deleuze’s Anarchism” and “Empiricism, pluralism, and politics in Deleuze and Stirner” discusses what he sees are similarities between Stirner’s thought and that of Gilles Deleuze. In “Spectres of Stirner: a Contemporary Critique of Ideology” he discusses the conception of ideology in Stirner. In “Stirner and Foucault: Toward a Post-Kantian Freedom” similarities between Stirner and Michel Foucault. Also he wrote “Politics of the ego: Stirner’s critique of liberalism”.

Insurrectionary anarchism

Egoism has had a strong influence on insurrectionary anarchism, as can be seen in the work of Wolfi Landstreicher and Alfredo Bonanno. Bonanno has written on Stirner in works such as Max Stirner and “Max Stirner und der Anarchismus”.

Feral Faun wrote in 1995 that:

In the game of insurgence—a lived guerilla war game—it is strategically necessary to use identities and roles. Unfortunately, the context of social relationships gives these roles and identities the power to define the individual who attempts to use them. So I, Feral Faun, became … an anarchist … a writer … a Stirner-influenced, post-situationist, anti-civilization theorist … if not in my own eyes, at least in the eyes of most people who’ve read my writings.

In the famous Italian insurrectionary anarchist essay written by an anonymous writer “At Daggers Drawn with the Existent, its Defenders and its False Critics” there reads “The workers who, during a wildcat strike, carried a banner saying, ‘We are not asking for anything’ understood that the defeat is in the claim itself (‘the claim against the enemy is eternal’). There is no alternative but to take everything. As Stirner said: ‘No matter how much you give them, they will always ask for more, because what they want is no less than the end of every concession’.”

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Are You Trapped by Egos – Types of Egoism 07 of 07 (justsimplyinlove.wordpress.com)

Are You Trapped by Egos – Types of Egoism Finale (justsimplyinlove.wordpress.com)

Since the war on terror started in Afghanistan back in 2001, the United States Air Force has employed various different UAV platforms to target insurgents and the Taliban. Both on Afghan soil as well as in Pakistani territory, with the covert approval of the Pakistan government. Observing the efficacy of UAV platforms like the Predator, the Pakistani military establishment requested the United States to equip it with UAVs so that the war on terror could be prosecuted with more efficacy on the part of the Pakistani military. However these requests were denied repeatedly and America cited the potential use of these UAV platforms in military theaters outside the Afghan Pakistan border (i.e. India) as a flimsy excuse. Faced with these denials, but unwavering in its resolve to achieve its objectives, Pakistan undertook a domestic UAV development program. Even prior to Predator requisition requests being turned down, the Pakistani military had already invested in various autonomous target drones, built both by the private and public sectors. In fact, we pointed out that the level of sophistication was such that – in a rather ironic twist -private Pakistani drone manufacturers were exporting UAVs even to the United States homeland security department for oversight applications on the US-Mexico border.

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Since then, much has happened. Pakistan entered into a deal with the Italian firm, Selex-Galileo, for the licensed production of fairly capable UAV aircraft at the Kamra Aeronautical facilities. In addition, the Pakistan Navy also acquired rotorcraft drones from foreign sources. Separately, the Pakistan Army has pursued partnerships with China and has incented local manufacturers to continue to develop more advanced platforms within the country. One of the more promising UCAV projects currently in progress in Pakistan is the Burraq armed drone. Burraq is envisioned as a high endurance, long-range, over the horizon, armed UAV aircraft. For the last four years it has been under development and rumors are now surfacing that it may be ready for deployment. At the recent Zhuhai airshow in China, in which the Pakistan Air Force participated with its JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, Chinese manufacturers also displayed miniaturized lightweight missiles that were particularly suited for carriage on a drone. Various parts of this sprawling Pakistani drone development program are coming together, in partnership with China – weapons development, control systems development, propulsion, airframe, ground stations and much else. The Burraq will only the first in a line of capable, armed Pakistani drones.

And soon. The Burraq, it seems, will be flying in early 2012.

The Pakistani UAV program is a wonderful example of the breadth of technological capability that exists in the country, its ability to collaborate internationally without relying on problem-ridden dealings with America, and the benefits of investing in local development and local manufacturing as opposed to wiring a ton of money to a foreign country and importing somebody else’s equipment (Saudi Arabia style). As with the JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, Pakistan will discover that the flexibility of owning and running a domestically developed military platform allows unending customization, full control of capabilities, and absolutely no worries with regards to security or someone else knowing its true performance, or even inhibiting the capabilities by doctoring the IFF system or other internal electronics. Not only that, but for private technological firms based in Pakistan a program of this nature creates tremendous economic opportunity. A variety of different inputs, ranging from materials to software to optics to electronics and propulsion technologies are required to build a high-tech UAV. A sophisticated military program such as the Burraq will lead not only to an improvement in Pakistan’s defensive and offensive military capabilities, but also in significant benefits for the economy and local industry.

We hope that in future, with military programs such as Burraq, the continued development of the spectacularly successful JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft and its various space technology ventures, Pakistan will continue to create domestic research and development capabilities which will ensure a brighter future for its people and a credible defense against any would-be aggressor.

Thank you Rummpy! for nominating this award especially as I never had one and really made my day. I know that all the effort I am putting into this blog is being noticed.Versatile Blogger Award – I am not sure where it originated from or who started this chain reaction. It all starts with you being asked to share 7 things about yourself, if you are going to accept this award.Since a I find most of you encouraged me by appreciating and expressing your opinion and I would like to thank all of beautiful minds leaving comments on this site.

Here are the some official rules:

Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.

We all need a dose of Inspiration – It can be find in different aspects of Life and it is what this blog is about. Keep it in your mind and I would recommend a quick visit when you get a chance – there is inspiration for everybody depending on your tastes and likes.

for the Liebster blog Award . I feel honored and blessed. This Award is given to bloggers who have less than 200 followers, all in the spirit of fostering new connections.

Leibster is German & means ‘dearest’ or ‘beloved’ but it can also mean ‘favorite’ & the idea of the Leibster award is to bring attention to blogs with less than 200 followers and I decided that I should definitely write a post about it & pass the award on to 5 or more bloggers.

Thank you Rummpy! for nominating this award especially as I never had one and really made my day. I know that all the effort I am putting into this blog is being noticed.Versatile Blogger Award – I am not sure where it originated from or who started this chain reaction. It all starts with you being asked to share 7 things about yourself, if you are going to accept this award.Since a I find most of you encouraged me by appreciating and expressing your opinion and I would like to thank all of beautiful minds leaving comments on this site.

Here are the some official rules:

Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.

Sitting in the Sun gave me, my frozen mind working again and decided to look for knowledgeable and talented people. But then I said fuck it and decided to sit longer in the sun. Sometimes, somethings drag us down, don’t they? What is it then? Could be some kind of commitment, obligation, or perhaps something more, that which has left us feeling oppressed, emptied and stressed? When we know clinging on to stubbornness ly to our foolish thought is not a good idea. We should be aware and hopeful, that we have the option of either ending it or improving it, the said words of commitment or obligation, or may be some kind of other…….. which we may fear naming it, deep down we know. But we may have been trudging along with this huge burden on our shoulders for so long we’ve forgotten that what is happiness, why we deny our own existance? As every soul was created with the symbol of love, with the beauty of thought of pure love, perhaps something more. Shall we say love never ends? and how easily can we just put it up or put it down and thinking for a moment when we are lost in our thoughts of peace or wars. Figuring out what we can live with and perhaps what we would be better off without – it’s hard to choose and then take a step toward making things better. Can we live with or without food? We would say yes and can eat leaves or any green will do and will still be in the loop of living dead. Intriguing the thought of we should question ourselves that what is it that our soul needs? which penetrates in our hearts and minds and to purify our souls. Guess what? Love it is which solve our hurdles on the life track. We were just made with a clay. We should have a caterpillar engine instead of a heart and small or a small processor on the top level. Just reboot the system and after every fuck up. And live with the thought of no worry no hurry. Hahahahaaaa we are human being, or what?

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